1. I vow not to watch and observe all my neighbors carefully before doing anything along the fence line. I removed a huge jungle of poison ivy off a fence between my yard and a nosy neighbor. Instead of being happy, he proceeded to file complaints about all the violations he could now see in my yard. It was then I understood why the old owners had encouraged the poison ivy, and why the fellow's other neighbor had even cultivated PI to climb up all his trees. Now I will have a heck of a time putting any vines back on the same fence without his permission. I could have added new plantings and slowly removed the PI over a few years!
2. I will keep my mouth shut when discussing future plans with my neighbors (see item 1). They have all the time in the world to think of reasons why it shouldnt be done. It is better to gradually change areas and 'grow' them into accepting it
3. I will never put too much effort in any area I havent observed all four seasons after seeing my large vegetable patch drown in the seasonal flood
4. I will plant a lot more 'easy' plantings everywhere. I spent so much time planning that nothing got planted. This year I am going to sprinkle the area with plugs and seeds. Some of it has to survive
5. I will look out for wildlife before demolishing areas. I have some really bad feelings about causing evictions. There was so much more life on my property than I ever could have guessed. I swear I saw a toad shake his fist at me after I ran him over with the mower wheel. And I don't go near the apple tree any more - those birds weren't singing to me like I first thought

LOL - did that make any sense? I vow not to rush in and change the fenceline without studying my neighbors first ... one day I will be able to put a sentence together sigh...

1. I vow never again to give in to "mother-in-law" (MIL) pressure and plant a lawn in a shaded thirsty area.

2. I vow never again to doubt the wisdom of my "organic" ways since dear MIL's Japanese Pine Tree was killed by her herbicide-happy Gardening Service.

And the most difficult of all:
I vow to at least try to convert MIL to more naturalistic, sustainable gardening designs and methods!

I vow to pay more attention to the evironment of my site, as opposed to what *I* want to grow there.

I vow to get rid of more lawn this year.

I vow to get rid of quite a few (but not all!)non-natives in my front yard this year, and perhaps divide them and have a plant sale.

I vow to stop winter-sowing right now because if even half of what I planted sprouts, I am going to be in big trouble. This is the hardest vow to keep, BTW. April